Prof. Mona Bhan to Speak at Stanford Symposium, 'Grounding Kashmir'

February 16, 2011

February 16, 2011, Greencastle, Ind. — Mona Bhan, assistant professor of anthropology at DePauw University, will be among the speakers at a Stanford University symposium, March 5 & 6. The program, "Grounding Kashmir: Experience and Everyday Life on Both Sides of the Line of Control," is being presented by Stanford's Center for South Asia and the University's Abbasi Program in Islamic Studies.

A synopsis states, "Disputed between India and Pakistan since 1947, the border region of Kashmir has tragically become the most contested and militarized zone in the world today. Research on this enduring South Asian conflict has been over-determined by a myopic security perspective, which centers on the changing contours of 'Kashmir policy', interstate rivalries, and local insurgencies. But how has ordinary life, relationships between generations, and life prospects been shaped by decades of insecurity, violence, and dispossession? How can we make sense of the multiple lineages of the dispute, and the different ways in which it has imposed itself on political subjectivities in the affected regions? And, most basically, why does the dispute continue to persist? These key concerns will centrally frame the symposium on 'Grounding Kashmir.' The presentations at the symposium will collectively illuminate the diverse trajectories of the Kashmir dispute through a historical, ethnographic, and literary lens, focusing on social imaginaries, everyday realities, and cultural politics."